Interview: Producer Ekaterina Filippova – Curator | 2019 Warsaw International Film Festival
Curator is a Georgian/Russian co-production directed by Petr Levchenko and presented at the Warsaw International Film Festival in the Competition 1-2 section, reserved to first and second features. The film follows the true story of a Georgian businessman in Russia who suddenly went on a murder spree, in what remains a famous criminal case to this day. Curator producer Ekaterina Filippova sat down with us to talk about the filmmaking process, from the initial idea behind the project and all the way up to the production challenges she encountered.
Levan Tskhovrebadze: This is story of crime going unpunished that you so often see in Russia. What made you choose this particular one?
Ekaterina Filippova: It’s not typical for Russian media to report on recent criminal cases in the country, but this was a huge scandal four years ago. The news was so outstanding that it spread far and wide in 24 hours, like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA. The starting point were the murders of some city officials. Some Russian people started referring to the shooter as ‘Georgian Robin Hood’. The story’s a good reason to talk about life in Russia, the moral and emotional climate and how the system works, not only in Russia. As far as I know, the director also had some private, personal reason fro writing the script. It came to him after he listened to an interview on the radio with the murderer’s son. It’s a moving story of a father and as on as well.
Tskhovrebadze: How did you cast for the film and how was the process?
Filippova: Any discussion of the cast begins, for me, with what Curator is: a Scandinavian noir based on Russian criminal documentary material, inspired by the Romanian New Wave and greatly influenced by the films of Aleksey German, Sr. We have some Georgian actors, Misha Gomiashvili and Beka Lemonjava. The first one is well known in Georgia, in Russia and in Europe too, because he starred in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s The President. He is part of the old generation of actors in Georgia, plus he is a friend of mine. We already did one film together, Everybody’s Gone by Georgiy Paradzhanov.
Tskhovrebadze:..and yet Beka Lemonjava is not that popular.
Filippova: Beka was suggested by Misha. We were looking for somebody who resembles him, but could be a younger version of him since Beka plays his son. He lives in Barcelona these days, and it was not easy to bring him to Moscow. We did the cast ourselves, and then I called Vladimir Katcharava, the Georgian producer, to get him involved.
Tskhovrebadze: Curator has a distinctively critical political stance towards governmental institutions. How did you get the funding from the Ministry of Culture in Russia? Is it related to the changes to the title? And how did the people from the Ministry react to the film?
Filippova: The original title was The Shooter. The script was exactly the same. It’s a real paradox. Have you seen my previous film The Man Who Surprised Everyone? That project was also supported by the Ministry of Culture. It’s not that easy and sometimes I think it’s going to be the last time I get funding from them. But in my opinion it comes down to the pitch. All of us go to them for pitching because we need money to make films, and perhaps reputation plays a role. I get to do certain things because I know how to get a result. We premiered the film at the biggest Russian Film Festival, Kinotavr, and we are still alive. It depends on many things. For example, people from Krasnogorsk told me I should not be doing this, but we still did it because we had permission from the Ministry.
2019 Warsaw International Film Festival – Part of the The Fipresci Warsaw Critics Project.
